Pop Goes the Weasel: DI Helen Grace 2 (Dci Helen Grace 2)

by M. J. Arlidge

  ‘Pity.’

  James shrugged and smiled his crooked smile. He was late thirties, handsome in his scruffy way with a lazy charm that usually worked on junior nurses.

  ‘No accounting for taste,’ he continued. ‘I thought she liked me but I’ve always been crap at reading signals.’

  ‘Is that right?’ Helen responded, not believing a word.

  ‘Anyway, do you fancy company? I’ve got a bottle of wine that’s … tea, I’ve got tea …’ he said, correcting himself.

  Up until that point Helen could have been tempted. But the correction irritated her. James was like all the others – he knew she didn’t drink, knew she preferred tea to coffee, knew that she was a killer. Another voyeur staring at the wreckage of her life.

  ‘Love to,’ she lied again, ‘but I’ve got an armful of files to go through before my next shift.’

  James smiled and bowed his submission, but he knew what was going on. And he knew not to push it. He watched with undisguised curiosity as Helen skipped up the steps to her flat. Her front door shut behind her with an air of finality.

  The clock read 5 a.m. Nestling on her sofa, Helen took a big swig of tea and fired up her laptop. The first twinges of fatigue were making themselves felt, but before she could sleep, she had work to do. The security on her laptop was elaborate – an impregnable wall surrounding what remained of her private life – and Helen took her time, enjoying the complex process of entering passwords and unlocking digital padlocks.

  She opened her file on Robert Stonehill. The young man she’d been shadowing earlier knew nothing of her existence, but she knew all about his. Helen began typing, fleshing out her growing portrait of him, adding the small details of his character and personality that she’d picked up on her latest bout of surveillance. The boy was smart – you could tell that right away. He had a good sense of humour and, though he swore every second word, had a ready wit and a winning smile. He was very good at getting people to do what he wanted them to do. He never queued for a drink at the bar – always managing to get some sidekick to do that for him, whilst he larked about with Davey – the thick-set one who was obviously the leader of the gang.

  Robert always seemed to have money, which was odd given that he worked as a shelf stacker in a supermarket. Where did he get his cash? Theft? Something worse? Or was he just spoilt by his parents? He was Monica and Adam’s only child – the centre of their world – and Helen knew that he could wrap them around his little finger. Is that where he got his seemingly limitless funds?

  There were always girls buzzing round him – he was fit and handsome – but he didn’t have a girlfriend as such. This was the area Helen was most interested in. Was he straight or gay? Trusting or suspicious? Who would he allow to get close to him? It was a question Helen didn’t know the answer to, but she was confident that she would figure it out. She was slowly, methodically creeping inside every quarter of Robert’s life.

  Helen yawned. She had to be back at the station shortly but there was still time for a few hours’ sleep if she packed it in now. With practised ease, she ran her computer’s encryption programs, locked down her files, then changed the master password. She changed it every time she used her computer now. She knew it was over the top, that she was being paranoid, but she refused to leave anything to chance. Robert was hers and hers alone. And that was the way she wanted it to stay.

  5

  Dawn was breaking, so he had to move fast. In an hour or two, the sun would have burned off the thick fog, exposing those who hid within it. His hands were shaking, his joints ached, but he willed himself forward.

  He’d stolen the crowbar from a hardware store on Elm Street. The Indian guy who ran it was too busy watching cricket on his tablet to notice him slipping it into his long coat. The rigid, cold metal felt good in his hands and he worked it hard now, back and forth, attacking the rusty bars that protected the windows. The first bar fell away easily, the second required more work, but soon there was enough room for a body to fit through. It would have been easier to go around the front and force his way in there, but he daren’t be seen on the streets round here. He owed money to too many people – people who’d gladly take him apart for the hell of it. So he moved in the shadows, like all creatures of the night.

  He checked again that the coast was clear, then swung the crowbar at the window. It splintered with a satisfying crash. Wrapping his hand in an old towel, he quickly punched out the rest of the glass, before levering himself up onto the sill and inside.

  Landing softly, he hesitated. You could never be sure what you might find in these places. There were no signs of life, but it pays to be careful and he held his crowbar tightly as he ventured forward. There was nothing of use in the kitchen so he quickly scurried into the front room.

  This was more promising. Abandoned mattresses, discarded condoms and near them their natural bedfellows, used syringes. He felt his hope and anxiety rising in equal measure. Please God, let there be enough residue inside to harvest a proper fix. Suddenly he was on his hands and knees, pulling out the plungers, thrusting his little finger inside, desperately grubbing around for a little bit of brown to ease his suffering. Nothing in the first, nothing in the second – goddammit – and a fingerful in the third. All this bloody effort for a fingerful. He greedily rubbed it round his gums – it would have to do for now.

  He sank back on the soiled mattress and waited for the numbness to kick in. His nerves had been jangling for hours now, his head pounding, he wanted – needed – some peace. He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, willing his body to relax.

  But something wasn’t right. Something wouldn’t let him relax. Something was …

  Drip. There it was. A sound. A slow but steady sound, disturbing the quiet, drumming out an insistent warning.

  Drip. Where was it coming from? His eyes flicked nervously this way and that.

  Something was dripping in the far corner of the room. Was it a leak? Shrugging off his irritation, he dragged himself to his feet. It was worth checking out – might be some copper piping in it for him.

  He hurried over, then stopped in his tracks. It wasn’t a leak. It wasn’t water. It was blood. Drip, drip, dripping through the ceiling. Spinning, he hurried away – none of my fucking business – but as he reached the kitchen, he slowed. Perhaps he was being too hasty. He was armed after all and there was no sign of movement upstairs. Anything could have happened. Someone could have topped themselves, could have been mugged, killed, whatever. But there might be spoils in it for a scavenger and that was something that couldn’t be ignored.

  A moment’s hesitation, then the thief turned and crossed the room, edging past the thick pool of congealing blood into the hallway. He darted his head out, crowbar raised to strike at the first sign of danger.

  But there was no one there. Cautiously, he stepped out and began to climb the stairs.

  Creak. Creak. Creak.

  Every step announced his presence and he swore quietly under his breath. If there was anyone up there, they would know he was coming. He gripped the crowbar a little tighter as he crested the staircase. Better to be safe than sorry so he darted his head into the bathroom and the back bedroom – only an amateur gets attacked from behind.

  Satisfied he was safe from ambush, he turned to face the front bedroom. Whatever had happened, whatever it was, it was in there. The thief took a deep breath, then stepped inside the darkened room.

  6

  She dived further and further down, the brackish water filling her ears and nostrils. She was far below the surface now and already running out of breath, but she didn’t waver. Strange lights illuminated the lake bed, rendering it diaphanous and beautiful, tempting her deeper still.

  Now she was clawing her way through the thick weeds that clung to the bottom. Visibility was poor, the going hard, her lungs were bursting. They said he was here, so where was he? There was a rusting pram, an old shopping trolley, even an oil drum, but no sign of …

&
nbsp; Suddenly she knew she’d been tricked. He wasn’t here. She turned to make for the surface. But she didn’t move. She craned her head round to see that her left leg was stuck in the weeds. She kicked with all her might, but the weeds wouldn’t yield. She was beginning to feel faint now, couldn’t hold out much longer, but she forced herself to relax, letting her body drift to the bottom. Better to try and disentangle herself calmly than kick herself into an even bigger mess. Forcing her head down, she dug through the offending weeds, tugging hard. Then she stopped. And screamed – her last ounce of breath escaping from her mouth. It wasn’t weeds holding her under. It was a human hand.

  Gasping, Charlie sat bolt upright in bed. She cast around her wildly, trying to process the weird disjunction between the weeds she’d been swallowed by and the homely bedroom she now found herself in. She ran her hands over her body, convinced her pyjamas should be wringing wet, but she was bone dry, except for a sheen of sweat on her brow. As her breathing began to slow she realized it was just a nightmare, just a stupid bloody nightmare.

  Forcing herself to keep calm, she turned to look at Steve. He’d always been a heavy sleeper and she was pleased to see him snoring softly beside her. Slipping quietly out of her side of the bed, she picked up her dressing gown and tiptoed out of the room.

  Crossing the landing, she headed for the stairs. She hurried past the door to the second bedroom, then scolded herself for doing so. When they’d first learned they were expecting, Steve and Charlie had discussed the changes they’d make to that room – replacing the double bed with a cot and nursing chair, covering the white walls with cheery yellow wallpaper, putting thick rugs on the hardwood floor – but of course all that excitement had come to nothing.

  Their baby had died inside Charlie during her incarceration with Mark. By the time they got her to the hospital, she already knew, but had still hoped that the doctors would confound her worst fears. They hadn’t. Steve had cried when she’d told him. The first time Charlie had ever seen him cry, though not the last. There were times in the intervening months when Charlie thought she was on top of things, that she could somehow process the awfulness of it all, but then she would find herself hesitating to go into the second bedroom, scared to see the imprint of the nursery they had imagined together, and then she knew that the wounds were still raw.

  She headed downstairs to the kitchen and flipped the kettle on. Recently she’d been dreaming a lot. As her return to work had drawn closer, her anxiety had found its release in nightmares. She had kept these to herself, keen not to give Steve further ammunition.

  ‘Couldn’t sleep?’

  Steve had snuck into the kitchen and was looking at her. Charlie shook her head.

  ‘Nervous?’

  ‘What do you think?’ Charlie replied, trying to keep her tone light.

  ‘Come here.’

  He opened his arms and she gratefully snuggled inside.

  ‘We’ll take it a day at a time,’ he continued, ‘I know you’re going to be great, that you’re going to get there … but if you ever feel it’s too much, or it’s not the right thing, then we can think again. No one will think any the less of you. Right?’

  Charlie nodded. She was so grateful for his support, for his ability to forgive her, but his determination to get her to leave her job riled her. She understood why he hated the police force now, hated her job, hated the awful people out there in the world, and many times she’d thought about heeding his advice and just walking away. But then what? A lifetime spent knowing she’d been beaten. Forced out. Broken. The fact that Helen Grace had returned to work a month after Marianne’s death only poured fuel on the fire.

  So Charlie had dug in, insisting she would return to work when her sick leave was up. Hampshire Police had been generous to her, had given her every ounce of support they could, and now it was her turn to give something back.

  Breaking away, she made them both coffees – there was no point going back to bed now. The boiling water fell into the mugs erratically, splashing over the sides. Irritated, Charlie stared at the kettle accusingly, but it was her right hand that was to blame. She was shocked to see how much it was shaking. She swiftly put the kettle back on the mount, praying Steve hadn’t seen.

  ‘I’m going to skip coffee. Just shower and run today, I think.’

  She turned to leave, but Steve stopped her, once more folding her into his big arms.

  ‘Are you sure about this, Charlie?’ he asked, his eyes boring into her.

  A brief pause, then Charlie said:

  ‘Yes, absolutely.’

  And with that she was gone. As she tripped up the staircase to the shower, however, she was well aware that her brave optimism was fooling no one, least of all herself.

  7

  ‘I don’t want her.’

  ‘We’ve had this discussion, Helen. The decision’s been made.’

  ‘Then un-make it. I can’t say it any more clearly, I don’t want her back.’

  Helen’s tone was flinty and unyielding. She wouldn’t normally be so aggressive to her superior but she felt too passionately on this point to back down.

  ‘There are lots of good DCs out there, choose one of them. I’ll have a full team and Charlie can go to Portsmouth, Bournemouth, wherever. A change of scene might do her good.’

  ‘I know it’s hard for you and I do understand, but Charlie’s got just as much right to be here as you. Work with her – she’s a good policewoman.’

  Helen swallowed down her kneejerk response – getting abducted by Marianne hadn’t been Charlie’s finest hour – and considered her next move. Detective Superintendent Ceri Harwood had replaced the disgraced Whittaker and was already making her presence felt. She was a different sort of station chief to Whittaker – where he had been irascible, aggressive but often good-humoured, she was smooth, a born communicator and largely humourless. Tall, elegant and handsome, she was known to be a safe pair of hands and had excelled wherever she’d been stationed. She seemed to be popular, but Helen found it hard to get any purchase on her, not just because they had so little in common – Harwood was married with kids – but because they had no history. Whittaker had been at Southampton a long time and had always regarded Helen as his protégée, helping her to rise through the ranks. There was no such indulgence from Harwood. She generally didn’t stay anywhere too long and was not the kind to have favourites anyway. Her forte was keeping things nice and steady. Helen knew this was why she’d been drafted in here. A disgraced Detective Superintendent, a DI who’d shot and killed the prime suspect, a DS who’d killed himself to save his colleague from starvation – it was a sorry mess and predictably the press had gone to town on it. Emilia Garanita at the Southampton Evening News had fed off it for weeks, as had the national press. It was never likely in these circumstances that Helen was going to be promoted into Whittaker’s vacant shoes. She had been allowed to keep her job, which the police commissioner had apparently felt was more than generous. Helen knew all this and she understood it, but it still made her blood boil. These people knew what she’d had to do. They knew she’d killed her own sister to stop the killings and yet they still treated her like a naughty schoolgirl.

  ‘Let me talk to her at least,’ Helen resumed. ‘If I feel we can work together, then maybe we can fi—’

  ‘Helen, I really do want us to be friends,’ Harwood interrupted deftly, ‘and it’s a little early in our relationship for me to be issuing you with an order, so I am going to ask you nicely to step back from this one. I know there are issues that you and Charlie have to resolve – I know that you were close to DS Fuller – but you have to see the bigger picture. The man on the street thinks you and Charlie are heroes for stopping Marianne. Rightly so, in my view, and I don’t want to do anything to undermine that perception. We could have suspended, transferred or dismissed either of you in the aftermath of the shooting, but that wouldn’t have been right. Nor would it be right now to split up this successful team just when Charlie’s ready
to return to work – it would send out completely the wrong message. No, the best thing to do is to welcome Charlie back, applaud you both for what you did together and let you get on with your jobs.’

  Helen knew there was no point fighting this one any more. In her artfully worded way, Harwood had reminded Helen just how close she had come to dismissal. During the public enquiry that followed the IPCC’s initial investigation into Marianne’s shooting, there had been many who’d called for her to be stripped of her badge. For acting alone in her pursuit of Marianne, for deliberately misleading fellow officers, for shooting a suspect without issuing a formal warning – the list went on and on. They could have killed her career if they’d wanted to – and she was surprised and grateful that they hadn’t – but she knew she was only back on probation. Her ‘charges’ were still on file. From now on, she would have to choose her battles carefully.

  Helen relented as gracefully as she could and left Harwood’s office. She knew she was being unfair to Charlie, that she should be more supportive, but the truth was that she didn’t want to see Charlie again. It would be like standing in front of Mark. Or Marianne. And for all her strength over the last few months Helen couldn’t face that.

  Heading back to the Major Incident Team, Helen immediately picked up on the buzz of excitement. It was early morning but already the place was busier than usual. The team had been waiting for her, and DC Fortune hurried over to bring her up to speed.

  ‘You’re needed down at Empress Road, Ma’am.’

  Helen was already picking up her coat.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A murder – called in by one of the local junkies about an hour ago. Uniform have been in, but I think you’d better take a look at it.’

  Already Helen’s nerves were jangling. There was something in the DC’s voice that she hadn’t heard since Marianne.